Weekend Box Office Update Jun 22-24 and Some Sequel Analysis

Good afternoon Disney friends,

The weekend has about come and gone and the estimates are showing another good weekend for Disney movies. There are still 3 films associated with Disney that are still found in the top 10 and with no major competition, Disney films should continue to hold well for the weeks to come.

First up is Incredibles 2, which had a larger drop than expected but still brought in approximately $80 mil for a running total of $350 mil . One possible reason for the drop is that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom with its opening of $150 mil was able to chomp into some of the ticket sales because of its strength. An interested side note, this is only the second time (first that did not include a holiday) in which 2 films opened up back to back with first weekends of over $100 mil (May 2007-Shrek the Third and Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End were the other 2 films.) On Tuesday, I2 ($27 mil) was able to have the highest Tuesday for the month of June. It has already surpassed the entire run of the first Incredibles, which was $261. It was able to accomplish this feat in just 7 days of release (Thursday.) As of now it worldwide gross stands at $485 mil, which may seem low, but animated films tend to have a long roll out period. In fact, it will not reach its last market until September so this film will continue to grow and will probably hit the $1 bil mark by the time it finishes playing. 

Solo: A Star Wars Story is estimated to gross approximately $4 mil this weekend. This puts it over the $200 mil mark and it is still doing pretty good considering how "low" it opened. In its 31 days of release, it has only dropped below $1 mil once. Partially because of this film (and probably almost completely because of this film,) Disney/Lucasfilm is being rumored to be putting a hold on any single entry films, instead looking to focus on Episode 9 and the future new set of trilogy of trilogy films that will be separate from the Skywalker family.

Avengers: Infinity War was able to pull in an estimated $2.48 mil this weekend which puts it less than $1 mil of the $670 mil mark.

Black Panther added another $74k to put it about $250k shy of $700 mil.

A Wrinkle in Time saw a bit of a jump this weekend and now becomes Disney's fifth film of the year to cross the $100 mil mark. This means that all of Disney's films released in 2018 have crossed that threshold.

Now for a little bit of nonexpert analysis/opinion. Looking at the past 2 weekends, I feel that unless the film has a strong or continuation of a story line or there has been enough separation, then sequels are starting to have a struggle. Now do not get me wrong, Fallen Kingdom is going to make a lot of money (maybe even cross the $1 bil mark for worldwide gross,) but this film is coming in weaker than the first Jurassic World film. That film did better than expected, but it had been almost 14 years since the last Jurassic Park film, which is close the length of time between the first Incredibles film and its sequel. Marvel films are able to grow from sequel to sequel because they advance the story line, but even then, if the plot seems weak or just a retelling of the previous film (Marvel's The Avengers vs. Avengers: Age of Ultron,) then expect there to be a drop. 

Thank you for sharing your time with me and I look forward to sharing with you Disney movie information with you again soon.

PS: As always if you need any help booking a magical vacation, please let me know how I can help.

New Walt Disney World Special

Disney has just released a special for early fall. The special is for stays between Sept 3-8, 2018. Here is the lowdown.

For example, starting at $149 per person, per night, a family of four—2 adults, 1 junior (ages 10 to 17) and 1 child (ages 3 to 9)—can stay in a standard room at Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort and delight in the enchantment of this offer for a total package price of $2,980.*

Here's a peek at what their incredible itinerary includes:

Tuesday, September 4, 2018: an exclusive "Welcome to Fall" dinner at Epcot inspired by the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival
Wednesday, September 5, 2018: a nighttime Kilimanjaro Safaris tour followed by an exclusive showing of Rivers of Light at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park after park closing
Thursday, September 6, 2018: two hours of exclusive evening access to Toy Story Land at Disney's Hollywood Studios
Friday, September 7, 2018: tickets to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party at Magic Kingdom park.

Email me brian.herndon@mousemadesimple.com and I can help you book a magical vacation.

Disney Box Office Update Jun 15-17 (An Incredible Weekend)

Good afternoon Disney friends,

To all the dads out there, Happy Fathers' Day. I hope you have had (and will continue to have) a wonderful day.

Disney definitely recovered this weekend from the disappointment of Solo: A Star Wars Story with an incredible opening for Incredibles 2. The film is looking at an opening of around $180 mil (estimates going into the weekend were between $120 and $140 mil.) This is the highest opening weekend for an animated film which broke the previous record of $135 mil for Finding Dory, which opened 2 years ago this weekend. To put the opening into perspective, the first Incredibles film only grossed over $261 mil during its entire run when it opened in 2004. This film has broken many records for animated films and opening weekends. Here is the list (the numbers in parenthesis compares the film to all pictures.)

Highest opening weekend-$180 mil (8th)

Highest opening previews-$18.5 mil

Highest opening day-$71.5 mil (14th)

Highest Saturday-$58.8 mil (10th)

Highest Sunday-$49.6 mil (8th)

The good run for Disney did not end here because the House of Mouse had 2 other films in the top 10. Solo ($9 mil) may not be having the best run for a Star Wars film, but it did cross $190 mil and will probably make it to $200 mil. Also, Avengers: Infinity War ($5.3 mil) crossed the $660 mil mark and now has $670 mil easily in sight. Infinity War also crossed the $2 bil worldwide mark earlier this week (only the 4th film to do so.) With this weekend's receipts, the film also passed Titanic for number 4 on the all time domestic ranking. Lastly, Black Panther is within $400k of hitting $700 mil. 

In terms of looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how the Incredible family is able to stand up to a bunch of dinosaurs next weekend. Then it will be a little bit slow until Ant-Man and The Wasp opens following the July 4th holiday.

I hope you have a magical week.

Weekend Box Office Roundup for Jan 8-10, 2018

Good afternoon Disney friends,

The second weekend of the month is about in the books and Disney still has 2 films in the top 5. 

Even though it is underwhelming at the box office, Solo: A Star Wars Story was still able to maintain its place at number 2 for the weekend. With an estimated take of $15 mil, the film has crossed the $175 mil mark (actually $176 mil.) It currently is the fifth highest grossing film for the domestic market this year. It has also moved up to number 12 for the global market (current gross of $312 mil and still has Japan to go.)

Avengers: Infinity War was number 5 and brought in over $6.8 mil which helped it cross the $650 mil mark (currently $654.7 mil.) The film also stands at $1.998 bil for the worldwide market. By Tuesday (probably sometime on Monday,) the film will become just the 4th film to cross the $2 bil mark. It also got an extra month in China (normally films only get about 1 month in China, but sometimes they will allow films an extra month.)

Black Panther is still inching its way to $700 mil with the addition of $137k bringing it to $699,388,067 in 17 weeks of release.

Next weekend sees the release of the long awaited Incredibles 2, which is looking to be Disney/Pixar's next hit. There are 2 numbers that will be interesting to keep up with (I am being careful with predictions after Solo's predictions.) First, Finding Dory has the highest grossing opening weekend ($135 mil) for the domestic market for an animated film. Secondly, Frozen, which is the highest grossing animated film for the global market, brought in $1.276 bil during its release. 

I hope you have a magical week.

Weekend Box Office Round Up for Jun 1-3 (a look at why Solo is so low)

Good afternoon Disney friends,Dismiss 

The weekend after Memorial Day lived up to its normal weekend numbers and was off quite a bit from last weekend. Part of that is probably due to the fact that so many high school graduations are occurring. Even with the low weekend, Disney still held on to spots 1 and 4 with Solo: A Star Wars Story and Avengers: Infinity War respectively. Both films are expected to bring in double digit receipts from the weekend box office.

First to Solo. Estimates are for the film to bring in about $29 mil this weekend from the domestic markets. This film is doing poorly for one of the biggest franchises in movie history. There are probably 3 major reasons why this film is coming in so low (see what I did there.) 1. It was just to soon after Star Wars: The Last Jedi. When the original trilogy came out, films were released every 3 years (1977, 1980, and 1983.) That allowed for a build up of anticipation which just did not happen with this film since it has only 5 months since the last film in the franchise. 2. Deadpool 2 and Avengers are cutting into the market share. This weekend those 2 films combined ($33.6 mil) grossed more the Solo. Some of that money could possibly have gone to the Star Wars film. 3. Bad publicity about the film may have scared off some casual viewers. After the original filming had finished, there were concerns about the direction of the film which led to the firing of the original director and bringing in Opie (Ron Howard) to try to save the film. He did a fairly good job based upon the fact that the film is getting good reviews from critics and movie goers, but it just was not enough.

Next, Avengers is slowly moving in on the $2 bil worldwide mark. The film currently stands at $1,964,869,932. This weekend the film was able to pull in over $10 mil stateside for running domestic total of just shy of $643 mil. Even with schools getting out for the summer, with movies like Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Ant-Man and the Wasp hitting markets over the next month, it will be hard for Avengers to make to $700 mil (of course I could be horribly wrong on that prediction.)

Lastly, Black Panther crossed the $699 mil mark and has less than $900k to go to make it to the $700 mil mark. Again, this will depend on how well it can hold facing stiff competition to come.

I hope your upcoming week is magical.